Sub-theme one: “Not an officer”

The therapists frequently described their prisoner-clients as having multiple and complex needs, observing that they had often been deprived of healthy, supportive and loving relationships. The therapists saw this deprivation as continuing in the prison environment in which prisoners’ liberty was restricted and the opportunity for healthy and positive relationships limited. As a result, the participants saw a key part of their role as providing prisoners with supportive relationships to counteract their negative or abusive experiences.

The therapists stressed the qualitative difference between the relationships they had with their prisoner-clients and the relationships that existed between the officers and prisoners.

Emma observed that a distinctive feature of her role was providing a uniquely “nurturing”

relationship to prisoners:

I suppose you do offer, to a certain extent, a kind of you know, nurturing, supportive relationship, and sometimes that’s the only place in the whole prison that that individual gets that. Where am I going with that? (Long pause) I suppose, well yeah,

Rescuing Therapist different

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I suppose sometimes there’s a kind of, a lot of demands on you, erm, (short pause) you know, you’ve got your one session a week but you might be caught in the Wing by a client saying “can I just check in with you” or, or “will you meet me to run something by you”, or “can we just have a quick chat” (Emma, 18,12-19,4).

Emma reflected on how being the sole provider of this “supportive” and “nurturing”

relationship could also be quite challenging; it placed a degree of pressure upon the therapist as the prisoners became attached to, and possibly reliant upon, the comfort it offered.

For Lucy, providing a supportive relationship was important in an environment where other staff, particularly officers, were seen by prisoners as instruments of the penal system rather than working in the interests of the prisoners. She identified a distinctive aspect of her role:

“So I think the fact that there’s one person that they see on a regular basis, who’s there purely for them - Erm, I think that for them, that’s really quite special” (Lucy: 14,11-14).

Lucy described herself as “purely for them”, stressing her orientation to the needs of the prisoners rather than working ‘for’ the prison.

Participants considered themselves also to be distinct from prison officers in the attitudes they held towards the prisoners. The therapists adopted what could be described as a human-centred approach, as exemplified by Helen:

I can give them a choice because that’s the nature of it, and in a sense that’s like an empowerment for them, in a place where they probably haven’t got any

empowerment, or, it’s soon taken away if they think they have. Erm, and, it’s about control as well, choice is about control. And prison, very little control they have, you know they have to do certain things at certain times, erm, and it’s giving them a bit of, I suppose it’s a humanity really, erm, they’re having that bit of humanity, from me, and I think that’s important because they’re not treated as humans. They are treated as criminals (Helen: 17,18-18,7).

Treating prisoners “like humans” was particularly identified as being an important and key feature of their approach, one which Helen conveyed to her clients by offering them choice and seeking to empower them. In her extract, we got a sense of her deliberate motivation to offer this to the prisoners in the awareness that they were deprived of it outside of the therapeutic relationship. Similarly, Lucy observed that all other staff saw the label

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‘dangerous prisoner’ before seeing the person beneath and as such, she believed her contrasting, human-centred approach was “the most precious thing” (33, 11) about the relationship she offered.

Belinda set out to empower the prisoners in her relationships with them. She told them to call her by her name rather than addressing her as ‘Miss’, as they did with the female prison officers, because she didn’t “want that power thing” (Belinda, 30,8) in the

therapeutic relationship. This was a further example of the way in which she and the other participants sought to separate themselves from the role of the officers. Helen went on to explain why this approach was so important:

Well simply because if you treat them as a number in prison, then you will, then you become part of the establishment, rather than someone that is there to give them some guidance in how they can help themselves. So, erm, it’s very, in prison, it seems err, I’ve only worked in prison a few years but it seems like it’s an us and them situation, and as a therapist you are sometimes privileged to not being us or a them, but to be a someone in-between. Erm, and I think, that’s, that’s the thing about being in, having a therapeutic alliance with someone is that the fact that they can do, they can see that (Helen, 3,16-4,5).

It appeared important to be distinct from the establishment, as being one of “them” was experienced as being incompatible in their role as a therapist or “guide”, as Helen saw herself. She appeared to say that it was important that prisoners saw that she was not a

“them”, she was not part of the “establishment” like the officers, but neither was she a prisoner.

Similarly, participants also sought to distance themselves from the officers because the prisoners had a negative view of the prison authorities. Indeed, Emma passionately described the effort it took when first working within the prison as a therapist to establish her identity as distinct from the officers:

I think a lot of people imagine that you are going to be seen automatically - as authority. Erm, and if that were the case, then yes, that would impact massively on trust, but I think I’ve worked hard, to you know, to emphasise, that I’m not an officer, and I’m not part of the erm, you know, kind of punitive authoritarian kind of discipline, that I’m very separate from that (Emma,15,12-16).

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Emma judged that a separate identity from officers was essential for gaining the prisoner-clients’ trust and therefore to developing a therapeutic rapport. Other participants also reported that demonstrating trustworthiness was an important aspect in their work.

Several participants described a process whereby prisoners appeared to vet the therapists to establish whether they were “on their side” (Belinda, 9,15) and therefore whether the prisoner was prepared to enter into a therapeutic relationship. Barbara said that if you weren’t considered trustworthy, “word would soon spread round the prison” (8,12). Belinda reported sensing quite severe consequences were she not deemed trustworthy and

essentially on the prisoners’ side:

The women, erm, smell it, they just seek, they will know. If they don’t sense that you do want to help them and you’ve got their interest at heart they will sense it, and they will have you, you, you’ll be mincemeat

R: In what way mincemeat?

Well they are incredibly manipulative, they can be incredibly manipulative. Erm, and I, I think that they’d probably cause such aggravation that you’d be asked to go (Belinda,2,2-7).

Belinda appeared to experience a sense of limited options being open to her; either serve the prisoners’ interests or face being dismissed from her job. This extract suggested that her allegiance and orientation to the prisoners was affected by more threatening

influences: “they will have you”. She perceived the prisoners as “smelling” out her loyalty, much like animals used their senses to identify fellow pack members or threatening outsiders. Her use of the word “mincemeat” and its reference to the saying ‘make mincemeat out of you’ also conveyed her perception of the prisoners’ potentially

destructive power. Perhaps because of this, Belinda later indicated that whilst she was “on their side” (9,15), she maintained a distance between her and her client:

We weren’t officers right, so therefore we were, we weren’t their friends, and you had to keep very distant boundaries, but we were somebody they could go to for help, somebody they could talk to, somebody, yeah we weren’t (short pause) we weren’t going to report them, we weren’t going to put them on a charge, we weren’t going to, judge them (Belinda,5,5-8).

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This extract reinforced the notion of Belinda defining her therapeutic role in terms of being different from the officers but also highlighted her awareness of maintaining some safe distance. Whilst she may be “on the side” (9,15) of the prisoners, she is not in their side with them.

Another dimension in which participants experienced their difference from officers was in their acceptance and containment of prisoners’ emotional vulnerability. Typically, prison officers were perceived by the therapists as being unable to deal with the prisoners’

emotional needs because they were too busy, inadequately trained, or unwilling. It is important to say here that the majority of the therapists took care to state that they did not experience all officers this way. Nevertheless, seven out of the eight participants felt that officers were at times unhelpful, insensitive or deliberately persecutory towards the prisoners. As such, the therapists experienced their interactions with prisoners in distress as being qualitatively different from those of the officers. Sarah gave an example of this by describing prison officers’ behaviour whilst she was trying to contain a very distressed prisoner:

There were two male members of staff stood at the door tapping their watches, erm, making it very, very apparent that I needed to be winding up that discussion even though I had a lady literally breaking down in tears in front of me

(Sarah,14,19-22).

By tapping their watches the officers communicated that, ‘there is no time for distress or emotion’. The officers appeared to adopt an emotionally unresponsive stance, leaving Sarah to put together the pieces of the prisoner who was “breaking down”.

Emma disclosed how hard it was to maintain connection with the prisoners’ emotional vulnerability when officers displayed so little sensitivity:

You might go to an office with them, with the officers and you know, they want to hand over about their level of self-harm and it’s all just kinda spoken about, “well yeah it’s all about the past abuse isn’t it, she’s got flashbacks at the moment”, it’s all spoken about so casually, that I think sometimes it’s hard as a therapist to, to hold on to the horror of their experiences (Emma,8,6-10).

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Emma wanted to be able to “hold on” to the horror of the experiences in order give the prisoner clients an empathic response, reflective of her desire to remain emotionally available to prisoners in a way the officers were not.

Helen conveyed the difference in perspective between her and the officers in respect of a client who suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD):

This particular chappy I had who had OCD he um, it was horrendous because the, the, the um officers thought he was putting it on, and he was so crippled by it. I’ve never seen anyone so crippled by it. A lot of, lot of work there was needed with him.

Erm, and what was sad was that they moved him from somewhere that was getting him the help, which didn’t make sense to me at all (Helen, 27,16-21).

Helen described that it was visually apparent (“seen”) that her client was “crippled” by his OCD; her perspective being that he was obviously suffering and in need of therapeutic work. She appeared to find it hard to make sense of, and was saddened by the officers’

cynical interpretation of his disorder and subsequent unhelpful actions. This extract is indicative of the way in which the therapists appeared to observe and respond to prisoners’

vulnerability, in contrast to officers who appeared either to fail to notice it or fail to respond sensitively.

Indeed, some prison officers were seen as being dismissive of therapy. Belinda (14,1) referred to a belief that therapy was “fluffy bunny rabbits and white clouds” and Sarah said there was a myth in prison that therapists left prisoners in a worse state:

There is sometimes erm, quite unfortunately this label attached to therapists working with prisoners, is that we’re going to open up all these cans of worms and that you know we’re going to leave these individuals in a really distressed state, and you know we’re not going to, I suppose close down the material that we had been working on (Sarah, 10,18-21).

In several important ways, participants appeared to experience a clear distinction between their role and the relationship they offered to prisoners and the role and relationship offered by the officers.

64 3.2.2SUB-THEME TWO:BEING “IN THE MIDDLE”

The therapists described extending their commitment to their clients in their interaction with prison staff by adopting a protective or advocate role. This appeared to be in response to witnessing the client’s vulnerability and the threat they perceived the officers or prison authorities as posing. As such, participants appeared to take up a middle position from which they attempted to increase the opportunity for the needs of the prisoners to be met.

This gives a second meaning to Helen’s explanation of her role: “It seems like it’s an ‘us’ and

‘them’ situation, and as a therapist you are sometimes privileged to not being ‘us’ or a

‘them’, but to be a someone in-between” (Helen, 4,2-3). It could be seen that Helen was identifying herself as being between two, often opposing sides. This perspective was shared by a number of the participants who linked the hostility between officers and prisoners to their desire to offer the participants some protection. For example, Belinda described a situation in which she acted as a protective intermediary when a client of hers was being transferred to another prison:

When she was transferred, I was asked to stay on to erm, to help her through, and when she was told she was moving, they, the officers and those three [three officers] was incredibly antagonist, and I was really glad that I was there because […] oh boy was he, you know, trying to stir her up, and I think he was wanting a fight, I really do. I think some of the officers wanted a fight. And err so anyway I nipped that in the bud, by saying “ok, so and so [prisoner], I’m going to help you”.

Right, and they couldn’t do anything then and she, she sort of went down and we packed her stuff (Belinda, 6,12-18).

This extract very powerfully conveys Belinda’s sense that she needed to protect the prisoner both physically and emotionally. She linked her offer to help the prisoner as being the shield that prevented the officers from doing anything further to antagonise her client – “they couldn’t do anything then”. She also aided the officers, helping them to achieve their task of moving the prisoner, though it is clear that she was primarily motivated by her orientation to her client’s needs. Belinda went on to say “sometimes we were used as a bridge. And that’s fine” (24,14); demonstrating a clear awareness and acceptance of this aspect of her role in the middle.

Barbara adopted an intermediary role that was similarly protective in nature but in contrast to Belinda, there was no recognition of her also serving the officers’ side. Her middle

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position was akin to that of a translator, helping prisoners to understand and interact with the officers. Here, she gives an example of how she cautions a prisoner to beware officers’

unforgiving behaviour:

I sort of remind him that, you’ve to be careful with interaction, particularly with officers, because one wrong thing written in your personal file by an officer can follow you around, and if they’ve got a grudge against you and after all they’re only human and you know, “I’ll ’ave him” and they’ll write something in the file (Barbara, 13,15-18).

There is a sense that Barbara accepted the officers’ malicious behaviour as inevitable, part of their innate fallibility of being “only human”. She attempted to draw her client’s attention to this in order to keep him safe in prison and later she went on to describe how she extended her intermediary role further by actively developing prisoners’ assertiveness skills in order to empower them in their interactions with the officers.

The participants generally experienced their middle role as being important and valuable, particularly to the prisoner; Helen described it as a “privilege” (4,2) to be in this position.

Emma identified challenges associated with this aspect of her role:

They [officers] might, you know, ask you to have a word. Erm, because they know that you’ve got a good rapport, or relationship with that individual and I think it’s very hard (short pause) to sometimes keep a firm grasp of your identity […] it was kinda discussed in our team that we were also kinda advocates for the client, erm, in a place where their autonomy was being erm, kinda taken away from them, to a certain extent (Emma, 14, 14-20).

Emma spoke of the difficulty of retaining a firm identity and role as a therapist because of the pull to assist officers who benefit from the rapport the therapists have with the prisoners. She saw the position of advocate as one that was adopted by the group;

therapists see the role as necessary because prisoners’ autonomy is being “taken away”.

She went on to say that because other staff were not helpful in assisting prisoners with practical problems, it “requires you to step in” which places a further “question mark over your identity” (Emma, 15, 8-9). In identifying needs on both sides, she experienced difficulty remaining in the middle rather than being pulled more to one side or the other and also difficulty in retaining her identity as a therapist.

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In experiencing the challenges associated with being “in the middle”, other participants rejected the intermediary role or explicitly attempted to limit the amount to which they were used as an advocate by prisoner-clients. Maria described a process whereby she initially felt the pull to assist prisoners with their practical problems in the absence of help from other staff helping the prisoners:

I’d kind of feel like I have to like contact people for them and do things, so I’d end up running around, and now I’ve kinda learnt that I’m just really boundaried with that and I say this is my role […] if they were just getting in to - we’re like the social worker, which does happen, to try and be a kind of a bit more boundaried about that I think (Maria, 7,14-19)

Maria had learned over time to become more role-boundaried and explicitly explained the limits of her role to prisoners in order to limit her activities to those of a therapist. Rob chose to separate himself as much as possible from the prison regime mainly in order to decrease the role-conflict he would otherwise experience. Here, he describes how his identity would come under threat, limiting his capacity to work as a clinician:

Kinda, your role gets, you know, you’re not seen just as a therapist you’re seen as, a

Kinda, your role gets, you know, you’re not seen just as a therapist you’re seen as, a